Notable Neighbor – John Avery Lomax

Folklorist, John Avery Lomax (1867-1948) lived on San Benito Way in Forest Hills in the mid-twenties to mid-thirties. His home was referred to “the house in the woods.” That original home (1925-2001) at 8170 San Benito Way is no longer standing.

Lomax was known for visiting prisons and recording on phonograph disks the work songs and spirituals of black prisoners. One such prisoner was Huddie Ledbetter also known as Leadbelly, who Lomax visited in Louisiana’s Angola Prison.

In 1931, John Lomax’s first wife, Bess Brown died suddenly at age fifty.  Their son, John A. Lomax, Jr.  moved back to the family home at that time in Dallas, at 8170 (7470) San Benito Way to help his father through the grief over the death of his wife and loss of a job with Republic National Company in Dallas. (From 1925-31 he was vice president.)

Young John Jr. took over the business responsibilities of his late mother organizing the tour, driving and promoting. He arranged meetings with publishers and helped negotiate archives of recordings with the Folksong Archive at the Library of Congress.

John Lomax and his other son, Alan recorded thousands of songs and helped start the musical careers of Muddy Waters, Woody Guthrie, Jelly Roll Morton and the Louisiana convict, Huddle Ledbetter, known as Leadbelly.  After Leadbelly’s prison release, Lomax took him on a Southern tour recording most of his songs.

Lomax was one of the founders of the Texas Folklore Society and president of the America Folklore Society. In collecting folk songs, he traveled 200,000 miles to all but one of the 48 contiguous states.  In 2010 Lomax was inducted into the Western Music Hall of Fame.

The cowboy’s lament sound recording | 1 sound recording | Published on the Library of Congress LP AFS L28 “Cowboy Songs, Ballads, and Cattle Calls from Texas,” edited by Duncan Emrich, 1952. (Bibliographic History). Forms part of the John A. Lomax Texas Recordings, 1942 collection. (Source). Recorded in Dallas, Texas. (Venue). Recorded in 1942. (Date). Sound Recording (Form). Contributor: Prude, Johnny – Library of Congress – Lomax, John A. (John Avery) Date: 1952

BOOK ABOUT JOHN A LOMAX

Last Cavalier – The Life and Times of John A. Lomax 1867-1948  

Written by Nolan Porterfield

Printed by University of Illinois Press

Excerpt mentioning Forest Hills

From Chapter, “Fare Thee Well, Babe, 1925-32’

…”Business boomed in those later years of the decade, at the crest of the Roaring Twenties. No records of Lomax’s income survive, but he was obviously doing well. One indication was the fine home which he built shortly after moving to Dallas.   Famous in family lore as “The House in the Woods,” it was a sprawling, nine-room bungalow, set deep among elms, white oaks and pecan trees on several acres of timberland in what was then known as the Forest Hills development, some six or seven miles northeast of downtown Dallas.  Lomax called it “a lovely refuge amid towering trees” and for him “the end of the trail.” (His retirement.)  An elaborated prototype of the design later so widely copied (and deprecated) as “ranch-style,” the House in the Woods was designed by David Reichard Williams, a young Texas architect just then at the beginning of a long and distinguished career.”

(Later in the chapter it reads) “Williams happened to be the Lomax’s closest neighbor in Forest Hills, off through the trees and down San Benito Way, where he had built a showplace for his ideas, with an oak tree growing in the center of the huge living room and a balcony stretched across it – something quite radical in 1925. “

(Architect David Reichard Williams, 1890-1962 is considered the godfather of Texas Modern architecture.)

“It was, on the whole, a life of comfort and tranquility. Only a short distance from the “The House in the Woods” was White Rock Lake, with its miles of shoreline, parks and boat docks.  Nearby also was Tenison Golf Course, where the Lomaxes frequently played a round on Sundays.  John saw to it that there was a small barn on the property to house a pony for the children and a flock of chickens, his favorite farm animals.”

The book is available at several online sites including Amazon and ebay.

Continue reading about John Avery Lomax at Texas State Historical Association (TSHA)

Lomax, John Avery (1867–1948)

By: Wayne Gard

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/lomax-john-avery

Texas Originals: John Avery Lomax

https://www.tshaonline.org/teacher-resources/resource/texas-originals-john-avery-lomax